


Would you make a wish (On my love)

by targaryen_melodrama



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: After the apocalypse four smart capable and highly trained people face their biggest enemies yet:, Communication and Vulnerability, F/M, Feelings with little plot, M/M, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, POV Alternating, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), basically everyone is alive, this is not an OT4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-23
Updated: 2020-02-23
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:46:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22851214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/targaryen_melodrama/pseuds/targaryen_melodrama
Summary: The four of them had been stressed out and overworked for months now, and it didn’t help that the two most stubborn people in their little Avengers quartet had feelings for each other they hadn’t fessed up to.Sam should tell one or both of them to spit it out, but he hasn’t said a word considering his mom had taught him that the worst things a person could be was a hypocrite. He has no business saying anything to Steve or Natasha when he’s as hopeless as they are.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Sam Wilson, Steve Rogers/Natasha Romanov
Comments: 10
Kudos: 74





	Would you make a wish (On my love)

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to my dear friend for beta'ing, it's always appreciated !

Sam’s heard Natasha raise her voice before. Mostly on the field, over the sounds of explosions and bullets flying, and sometimes off, though those occasions were rare. 

None of it had ever been as scary as the low, angry tone she was using with Steve right now. 

“The objective was simple. The parameters were simple. There was nothing, no one, in our way for 80% of the mission. You still found a way to throw yourself into danger.”

“I’m not rehashing this, Tasha.”

“ _I’m_ rehashing this, Steve. We could’ve found the information another time, through someone else.”

“And how long would that take? Getting our hands on their specs gives us so much more time to plan how to take them out. Prevents so much more damage.”

“We’re here for a few days, anyways, Steve. We’re stuck. You almost got yourself shot for specs we could’ve gotten any other way, so we didn’t have to wait, yet here we are, _having to wait_. Is that what I’m supposed to understand?”

Her words echo around the entryway of their mansion of a safehouse—they’d barely removed their boots before the daily Steve-Natasha ramble broke out, where neither of them win, and he and Bucky are stuck awkwardly waiting for things to die down. 

Sam had foolishly hoped that this unexpected almost-vacation would calm everyone down, let them rest and maybe even forget about the field for a while. The old network of Shield safe houses had been compromised one too many times to be relied on, and for no other reason than maybe God deciding to smile on them today, they’d been close to one of Tony’s properties, a beautiful two-story house with floor to ceiling windows hidden in the middle of a pine forest not too far from the Pacific, and were crashing for a few days, save any Apocalypses. 

The four of them had been stressed out and overworked for months now. Week after week, they were called on missions that ranged from kind of dangerous to downright deadly, with only two or three people to back them up, if any. 

Tony and Rhodey were busy figuring out a governance structure for the Avengers after the Accords blew up the shoddy structure they were first operating under and Thanos blew up any hope they had to retire. With Thor spending half his time space travelling with a raccoon, and the other half helping Valkyrie through her first few months of ruling New Asgard, Bruce trying to gain a semblance of control on the Hulk with Scott and a team of biologist’s help and Clint taking a “break” from everything by helping Coulson and Fury rebuild Shield for the third time, there were few people to call to take care of whoever decided they wanted to take over the world that week. Saying they were stretched thin would be the understatement of the century. 

“This is _all_ you do, Steve. You throw yourself into the fire without thinking for a second about anybody else. When the hell are you finally gonna realize that not everything calls for a Hail Mary?”

Oh, yeah, and it didn’t help that the two most stubborn people in their little Avengers quartet—and isn’t _that_ saying something—had feelings for each other they hadn’t fessed up to, turning any potentially reasonable argument into a fight they were invested in in ways the other couldn’t understand. 

“What else do you want me to do?” Steve roughly runs a hand through his hair. He dumps his bags on the floor and stalks to the kitchen, allowing Sam and Bucky to move slightly out of the way. “Honestly. Give me any other option. Tell me what I could’ve done differently today for things to work out.”

“I can’t! I honestly, seriously cannot Steve.”

“I know you can’t. Christ, Natasha. You of all people should know about doing whatever’s necessary.”

Jesus. This is far from their first argument, but this is the lowest either of them has gone. Sam can barely withhold a flinch, and, out of the corner of his eye, sees Bucky tense up. 

Natasha, who had started following him to the kitchen, stops dead in her tracks. 

“You’re right,” she says, but Steve doesn’t deflate, and still seems on edge. He knows he fucked up. “I should know better.”

Without another word, she jogs up the stairs that lead to the second floor. 

Steve opens his mouth then shuts it, and leaves as fast as Natasha did, heading down the hall, probably down to his room. Sam doesn’t expect him to come back out until tomorrow morning. 

It’s just him and Bucky in the kitchen, and Sam doesn’t need that situation to last any longer than it has to. 

"If you’re good with that,” Sam says, “I’ll take the room upstairs, too."

“Yeah, that’s fine,” Bucky says. The look on his face is one Sam can’t quite pin down, a mix of disappointment and exhaustion, and if things were different, Sam would stay behind until whatever it is was fixed, until Bucky was back to his teasing, frustrating self. As it is, Sam hauls ass up the stairs just like Nat did. The only place he wants to be right now is bed, but he knows he needs a shower first and foremost, so he dumps his bag one of the two empty rooms left, and heads to the bathroom. 

The bathroom is predictably massive, with a wide, lighted vanity mirror, a shower stall that could fit a decently-sized New York City studio, and the biggest shower head Sam’s ever seen. 

Purple candles stand out against the light grey countertop—the only other color in there is porcelain white—and when Sam realizes the floors are heated, it feels like the spa day he’s been dying to have since 2014. He wastes no time taking off his uniform and hopping into the shower, after lighting a few of the lavender scented candles and dimming the lights.

Sam carefully rubs and scrubs at every inch of his body, trying to focus on massaging the sensitive, aching parts of his body, but his mind keeps drifting back to the way the part few weeks have been going.

Sam hates being caught in fights, mostly because it’s something he’s never grown up experiencing and hates how violent they can get, but also because he knows, from personal and professional experience, that none of the yelling, insults or threats are necessary to come to a resolution. 

He hates it even more considering that both Steve and Natasha have points—well they _used_ to; they hadn’t even bothered talking about specific issues the past few days. Nat would call Steve’s actions _suicidal_ ; Steve would call them _necessary_ , and they’d both storm off angrily, always completely missing the fact that they were so frustrated with each other because of the feelings they had for one another.

Sam should tell one or both of them to spit it out. Just a few years back, he was of the "shit or get off the pot" school of thought (though he didn’t exactly like the wording). That changed without him even realizing it, around the time Steve came crashing into his life. He’d always thought that if you were truly friends with someone you had feelings for, the relationship could go back to the way it was before feelings were brought up, with enough communication. He still believes that, in a way, but he also understands not wanting to mess up relationships like the ones he has now. Space and time aren’t really things that can be asked of someone when you’re spending 90% of your time in life and death situations with them.

But, more importantly, he hadn’t said a word because he believed, like his mom had taught him, that the worst things a person could be was a hypocrite.

Sam closes his eyes with a sigh and lets his head fall on the marble wall. 

He’d done it to himself is the thing. Got used to having Bucky at his side and carelessly let down his guard. Sam’s not sure when he started feeling safer with Bucky by his side off the field, when Bucky’s hand on his shoulder had started feeling like an anchor no matter the circumstances. Sam has absolutely no clue why he’d actually thought that any of this meant something meaningful could happen between him and Bucky, or why he’d gone as far as planning to confess his feelings, right before Thanos had arrived in Wakanda and wiped them from the surface of the Earth.

They’d been trapped in the soul stone for twelve hours at most—or so they thought—but it was enough for Sam and Bucky to cling to each other emotionally—and then physically—when they thought they weren’t going to see home ever again.

_"I—Bucky, I felt something when we...when we did what we did in the soul stone."_

_"I don’t know, Sam. I—I feel like we should wait."_

Yeah, Sam has no business saying anything to Steve or Natasha when he’s as hopeless as they are. The best thing he can do, the _only_ thing he can do right now, is be thankful that at least this time around, the person he fell in unrequited love with is still alive.

*

Sam does feel somewhat better after spending about an hour in the shower. He lotions thoroughly, pulls on sweatpants and a t-shirt and checks on Nat before properly turning in. 

She doesn’t ask who it is when he knocks, and when she tells him to come in, her voice sounds further away than Sam expects.

He finds her sitting cross-legged on the floor of a balcony, wrapped in a dark blue wool sweater. The sky is mostly grey—it’ll probably rain soon—but the few rays of sunlight light up Nat’s hair, the wind blowing lightly through the few strands of hair that escaped her low bun.

"Feels unfair that you got the best room without any of us knowing," he says as he sits down next to her, bringing his knees up and resting his arms on them.

“First come, first serve,” she says. Her smile is a pale copy of the real thing, and Sam realizes she’s more upset than he thought she was. 

“I’m sorry, Nat.”

“For what? For me being ridiculous? For me thinking I could change his mind? That I could get him to see?” She shakes her head, and Sam can see tears forming in her eyes. “What’s that fake Einstein quote that keeps going around the Internet? ‘The true definition of insanity is doing something over and over again, and expecting different results’. I’m certifiably insane, Sam.” Her voice cracks.

“Don’t,” Sam says. “Don’t do that. I get where you’re coming from. You’re allowed to be upset.”

She laughs. “Sure, I’m _allowed_ , but it doesn’t change the fact that we’ve been fighting like this for way too long now. I’m sick of it. I’m sick of _him_ , and I’m sick of me.”

Sam grabs her hand and squeezes it. 

"And he’s right anyways. He is, damn it." She wipes the few tears that managed to escape down her cheeks, and clears her throat. "I’ve fought beside people I loved before, and I didn’t act like this. Didn’t care about their strategic decisions nearly as much, so long as the job was done. Hell, I used to think just like him."

"But?"

"But now...I get to live, now. I get to choose. I’ll do what needs to be done, always, but I know I have people to come back to. He acts like he doesn’t, and I can’t—I don’t get to ask him to make an exception. I don’t get to matter enough to ask him not to put his everything on the line."

Sam sighs. "I’m sorry," he says again, because there’s nothing else he can really say. 

"Seriously, Sam. Don’t be. I should know better than to let it affect me like this. I know he doesn’t...I know he doesn’t think of me the way I think of him."

It's Sam’s turn to laugh, and goddamn it, it sounds just as wobbly as Nat’s had. "Man, what’s with us and unrequited love, Nat?"

"I don’t get it," she says with a somewhat genuine smile. "We’re both hot, and mostly have our shit together. I said mostly,” she insists when Sam raises a brow. “It shouldn’t be this hard to find a relationship that works for us."

"Eh," Sam says as he wraps his arm around Nat’s shoulders. "Relationships are overrated." 

"Friendships, though." Nat turns, and drops a kiss to Sam’s fingers where they’re curled on her shoulder. "I wouldn’t trade them for the world."

***

A few hours after Sam had left, taking Natasha’s good mood with him, she hears another knock at her door. She’d hoped it’d been Sam again, with a silly, flimsy excuse to come see her so he didn’t have to go to bed, but she knows, deep down, who would come disturb her this late. 

Steve had stopped pretending he wasn’t an insomniac some time after the Accords debacle, and would more often than not knock at her door just after midnight, with a mug of tea and a deck of cards. They both pretended they didn’t keep score (she had him beat at Speed, they were tied at Double Solitaire), and played until one or both of them felt like speaking, but spent most nights playing quietly. 

This is the fourth week Steve hasn’t shown up bearing gifts. Neither of them have been sleeping all that well. 

Natasha clears her throat, sits up in her bed and pushes her comforter down so that only her legs are covered. "Come in," she calls. Her voice is steady enough, almost back to normal.

Steve is at the door, barefoot, hands shoved deep in his pockets, wearing a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt Natasha knows are Sam’s, and Nat knows he’s won the first round against her defenses. He looks tired, vulnerable, a bone-deep fatigue bringing him down, reminding her of the way he’d looked at her after reading the Winter Soldier files, way back when. 

It had taken her longer than she’d like to admit to realize that the open, friendly demeanor Steve had with most people he interacted with could also be used to deflect and throw people off, and to realize that Steve wore his costume even when out of uniform. That’s when her troubles started.

And sure enough it’s causing problems now. His eyes are wide, full of frustration and pain, completely devoid of artifice, and more than anything, Natasha wants to hold his hand and let him know there’s nothing they couldn’t fight together. 

_Two-zero, Steve Rogers_. 

Steve comes in, sits next to her in her bed, and Natasha would pay any price to put a bit of distance between them, yet she can’t bring herself to ask. 

He clears his throat, and looks up at her with serious blue eyes. 

"We keep doing this."

"We keep doing what, Steve?" She knows. She wants to hear him say it.

"We keep fighting over the same thing, and I...I hate it. I don’t wanna fight with you."

"Sometimes it’s just how things are,” Natasha shrugs. “Sometimes you don’t get along with your coworkers. It is what it—"

"Coworkers?" He frowns.

"Isn’t that what we are?" 

Yes, ultimately, it’s what they are to each other. And a good, drastic drag back down to reality is what they need. What _she_ needs. 

"No. _No_. We—we’re so much more than that."

"We’re coworkers first."

"Not anymore." His eyes are steeled, resolved again, and Natasha braces herself. "You’re my friend first."

"Then why can’t you understand that I don’t want my friend to constantly put himself at risk?" 

_Fuck_. She thought she’d been prepared, and yet she’s rising to easy, obvious bait when they haven’t even been talking for a minute.

"It was reckless, but it was necessary," Steve says softly, and now, she’s confused. She thought they were gearing up for a fight. Why isn’t Steve angry like he was earlier? "I’m sorry it upset you, but I’d do it again. I’m going to do it again."

"And I’m going to fight you about it again. It’s like you don’t understand that—"

"It’s like I don’t understand that what?"

"It’s like you don’t understand that your friends don’t wanna see you hurt."

Maybe if he thinks of other people being upset he’ll get it. 

_Or maybe not_ , she thinks when Steve stays quiet for a moment. Looks like they’re at an impasse.

"I don’t wanna keep doing this with you," he finally says. 

"I know that." _You’re not going to stubborn your way out of this, Steve_.

"It..." Steve’s eyes are cast down, his cheeks flushed pink, and his fingers playing with the corner of the comforter. "It hurts me to fight with you like this."

Natasha laughs, can’t really help it. “What do you think it does to me when you’re being reckless?”

“No, I—it hurts me because— _oh_. Wait.”

Something seems to suddenly dawn on Steve, and Natasha wishes she could be privy to his private little epiphany, or at least she hopes that he spits it out quickly, so he can leave and she can try to go to sleep.

Instead of sharing his thoughts though, he moves closer to her, so close that his thigh touches hers, and grabs one of her hands.

“Tasha?”

The most potent truth serum couldn’t make Natasha explain how she knows what’s happening, but she’s suddenly, abruptly, aware of what Steve’s eureka was about. 

All at once, several things start making sense: Steve always sharing guard shifts with her, insisting on co-piloting when she was piloting the quinjet, always staying behind after debriefs long after Sam and Bucky had left to head home with her. Steve confiding in her, unprompted, about the people and things that kept him up at night. Steve consistently, without judgment, listening to the things and people that earned the red in her ledger. 

The late night talks, the quiet early mornings watching the sun climb up in the sky together, knowing they hadn’t slept at all. 

He’d revealed himself to her before she’d even asked, and been ready to receive her in return, never flinching. 

He’d been right there with her. All along. 

“Steve? You don’t—you can’t—”

_Don’t do this to me. Don’t take me apart like this when you’re the only one who can put me back together._

“Tasha.” His eyes are serious again. He sounds so fucking sure. 

“I...”

“I know I’m wrong about a lot of things,” he says with a wry smile as he moves up towards her. He cups her cheek, and Natasha’s eyes flutter shut for a few seconds. 

The world is full of unfair things. The most unfair of them all is just how perfectly Steve’s hand fits on her face. 

“I don’t think I’m wrong about this.” He moves closer. His mouth is inches from hers. “You’ll tell me, if I am.”

Steve kisses her lightly, softly, not like she’s fragile, but like she’s precious. It’s over all too soon.

Natasha, for the first time in her too long life, is unable to let the silence just sit. She licks her lips. 

"How was your second kiss since 1945?”

Steve huffs out a quiet laugh. "Not bad. Think my third one will be my best yet."

There’s not much else to say after that.

***

If Bucky’s been keeping track correctly, Sam has been alone in the living room for an hour and a half now, and Bucky’s been debating whether he should get out of bed and join him for the past thirty minutes. Awkward as it would be, spending the night awake next to a quiet Sam would be much better than spending it in bed, without him. 

They’d been stuck together—more than usual—for the last month, what with having to watch Steve and Natasha be at each other’s throat, refusing to be adults about it and either talk it out or fuck it out. This weird fracturing in the team still hadn’t been enough to get rid of the distance that had kept growing between Sam and him since they’d come back from the soul stone, which was, Bucky realizes, over six months ago. 

Six months of reserved, friendly smiles, instead of the wide, joyful ones Bucky had grown used to. Six months of head nods instead of reassuring touches. Six months of awkward silences and averted gazes.

 _Fuck it_. 

Bucky slips on a shirt, the first pair of pants he can find, which happen to be his most comfortable pair of leggings, and heads to the living room.

The house is pitch dark and mostly quiet. Sam is standing in front of one of those giant windows, mostly lit up by the occasional lightning strike and the stars, properly visible this far away from the city. 

“Didn’t know taking up the Cap mantel meant you had to brood like Steve, too.”

“I’m a much better brooder than Steve,” Sam says without turning around, and sounding nothing like the Sam Bucky’s been bantering with for the past few years. He sounds uncomfortable, and looks that way too, Bucky notices when he gets closer to Sam. 

Bucky sighs. Sam’s looked like this for weeks. Uncomfortable and unhappy.

“I don’t know about that. He had the whole _the weight of the world rests solely on my shoulders_ thing going. You look a little less miserable.”

Sam chuckles. “I think stoic brooding thing is more my style.”

“Yeah, I—I guess it is,” Bucky says, when he realizes he has nothing else to say. He’s never walked on eggshells with Sam, never needed to actively look for something to say. It feels...wrong. Like there’s a wall between them they’re somehow both responsible for, and he’s not sure how to tear it down. Worse, he’s not sure if Sam _wants_ to tear it down.

“Sam. Can we...can we talk?”

That’s not what Bucky had come here to do, but he doesn’t wanna spend another second with things being the way they are between them. 

Sam turns to look at him. His brown eyes seem even darker in this low light, but still ridiculously expressive. Ridiculously beautiful. 

“Do we have to?”

“Of course we don’t _have_ to. I just don’t think I can stand this between us anymore,” Bucky says, gesturing in the empty air between the two of them. 

“What’s _this_ between us, Bucky?”

Bucky takes a deep breath, tries to stay patient. He knows Sam knows, and really doesn't feel like spelling it out. 

“Things haven’t been the same for a while now. Not since we got out of the soul stone.”

“I know,” Sam says. Bucky’s surprised, but he really shouldn’t be. Sam might’ve been reluctant to confront things, but that doesn’t mean he wouldn’t confront them at all, or avoid this. 

“I wanna know why.”

“Why?” Sam echoes, incredulous. “I thought it was obvious. We clearly didn’t want the same things. I misunderstood what happened then, and it’s taking me a while to adjust. I’m sorry I’ve made things worse.”

“You didn’t misunderstand anything, Sam. I wanted it then.”

“ _Then_ , yes. After, well...clearly not.”

Bucky frowns. “Where’d you get that from?”

Sam squints, like he’s confused by what Bucky said. “From you. You said you didn’t want me—this.”

“That’s really not what I said, sweetheart.”

"You said we needed to wait, Bucky. What else was I supposed to understand?"

"I said that I felt like we should wait, not that I never wanted to." 

Sam seems to close in on himself even more, like Bucky didn’t think it was possible to, and Bucky decides to go for broke. They’re not gonna fuck things up this time. 

"You never looked at me long enough," he says quietly. 

Sam frowns. "What?"

"Back then. Before...before everything. Before Wakanda. You never looked at me long enough to know if I looked back." Bucky gently lays a hand on Sam’s shoulder. "I was right there with you. I wanted something—I wanted you, and you didn’t seem to know, because you never looked at me long enough. When I said I thought we should wait, I just needed to make sure you weren’t asking me because of what happened in the soul stone. Couldn’t let you—let us—go through that. If it’d been a near death experience thing, I don’t...I don’t think I could’ve handled that."

"Why didn’t you tell me ?" Sam asks, after being quiet for a few moments.

"You never brought it back up, and I wasn’t sure you’d want to again."

"You should’ve told me."

"Why didn’t you tell me before Wakanda?" Bucky asks instead of answering.

"Because I was scared, Bucky. Hadn’t even realized there could be an ‘us’ before then."

Bucky wraps his arm around Sam’s shoulder, and doesn’t think he imagines Sam’s sigh. 

“I was scared, too. Shit, I’m still scared. Terrified. But I’d still like to try.”

Sam is quiet, but he doesn’t move away from Bucky’s touch. 

_God_ , this really is all he’s wanted, Bucky realizes. All he wants. To be welcomed into Sam’s space, to share it with him, whether it’s quietly watching the rain pour down in the middle of the night or being out and about in the city.

"So what now?" Sam asks.

"Now? Now you tell me what you want. I tell you what I want, and we see if we can work something out." Bucky moves so his entire body is behind Sam’s, and swears his heart beats louder than the thunder outside when Sam leans back completely and lets himself be held.

"I want..." Bucky can feel the deep breath Sam takes. "I want a relationship with you. Wanted that for a while, now. And I...I want you to want that, too."

Bucky kisses Sam’s temple before resting his chin on Sam’s head. "I do want that. I want to be your partner. Want you to trust me." The words can’t seem to stop pouring out of his mouth, like it’s only safe to speak them aloud with Sam in his arms. "Want you to care about me like I care about you.”

“Done.”

“Yeah?” Bucky’s glad Sam can’t see his smile just now. 

“Yeah.” Sam turns in his arms, kisses his cheek, and wraps his arms around Bucky. 

“What now?” Bucky echoes Sam’s words. There’s nowhere he’d rather be, but it’s close to three in the morning, and neither of them have to go back to bed alone. 

“I’m good here. You?”

“I’m perfect. Just think we could move somewhere more comfortable.”

“ ‘M not going in your bed our first night together, Barnes. Show some respect. That how you treated the girls you took out back then?”

Bucky grins. “Who said anything about my bed?”

Sam looks up at him and raises an eyebrow. “We’re not going in my bed ei—Bucky!”

In one swift move, Bucky had lifted Sam off the ground and flipped him in his arms so he was being carried bridal style and was walking over to the couch.

“You’re cute when you squeal.”

“I don’t squeal—and I’m always cute,” Sam says. “If you dump me somewhere, you’re gonna make me wake Steve and Nat up.”

“With the stuff I heard coming from Natasha’s room earlier, I highly doubt it, sweetheart.”

While Sam grimaces, Bucky sits on the couch with Sam in his arms, before carefully laying down, moving so that Sam is on top of him.

Sam huffs, moving around until he’s comfortable, his head tucked into Bucky’s shoulder. 

"I’m sorry I didn’t reach out again, after," Bucky eventually says against Sam’s hair. “Sorry I dragged this out for so long.”

"It’s okay," Sam murmurs against Bucky’s collarbone. "You’re reaching out now. ‘S not too late."

"No," Bucky agrees. He thinks of the few days they have off, the time they’ll be able to spend together, not interrupted by a mission, by the end of the world, or by their fear. "The timing is perfect."

***

The stairs are mostly quiet under Steve’s feet, but he still walks carefully, trying not to wake Bucky, despite how cold he is. He hadn’t really thought about much when he left Nat’s bed to grab water, only that he needed to be back as fast as possible, so he’d only bothered to slip on his boxers before heading down. 

Steve makes it to the kitchen fast enough, and is on his way back up with two bottles of water when a voice startles him.

"Guess you won’t be making it to our morning jog, huh."

Steve’s cheeks are warming but his awkward reply dies on his lips as soon as he sees that Sam is laying on Bucky, who’s definitely also awake, though his eyes are closed.

"Guess you won’t either," he says with a raised brow. He lasts a grand total of five seconds before he grins, unable to stop himself, especially when Sam smiles back. "Don’t worry. You deserve it."

Steve means Sam deserves to rest tomorrow morning, deserves Bucky’s arm curled protectively around his waist, deserves to lay his head on someone’s shoulder as much and as long as he needs to.

"Good night, Steve."

"Night, Sam. Buck."

With one last nod, Steve jogs back up the stairs quickly, hoping to get his body to be just as warm as his heart feels.

**Author's Note:**

> Steve/Nat never really did anything for me, but someone tweeted (and then deactivated their account so I can't link the tweet) as one of their unpopular MCU opinions that they thought Steve and Natasha should've been the franchise couple, and that they had a lot in common (both understanding what it feels like to be used as a propaganda tool for their countries) and my brain was like huh...interesting...why not. (Though that's not at all what I ended up writing).
> 
> And then I didn't wanna leave Sam out of it, so here we are. 
> 
> Title from sad day by FKA twigs. 
> 
> I am on [Tumblr](http://targaryenmelodrama.tumblr.com) !


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